Maria Haskins on Native Voting & the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election (Hour 1)

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Yeah, come on.

Here's Pete Schwabba.

Dude.

And Greg Bach.

Dude.

Hey, hey, Wisconsin.

Welcome to Night Lights.

Hope everybody's having a great day.

It is Thursday night in the beautiful state of Wisconsin.

Things have warmed up a little bit.

I know up here in northeast Wisconsin, our snow is finally melting.

But it is, as I like to call it, the Christmas Eve of weekdays.

And who better to celebrate that with than my fantastic co-host, Mr. Greg Bach.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome from sunny, beautiful Arizona.

We've got you, buddy.

Yep, we weren't sure

if this was gonna work, but good for you.

You got set up there You're doing a you're like our Arizona correspondent tonight.

That's exactly my I'm on the ground and I'm here to tell you it's real hot it is currently Wow currently it is 102 degrees Wow, but it's a dry heat just

to be

fair shut

Listen, I

do I

love the dry heat.

I like heat I would take a hundred over ten below or zero I really would and I have fair skin.

Look at me.

I'm a pink mess.

This is ridiculous But yeah, I don't mind the heat

so much

All right, well, that's good.

Come on out here.

There's a bedroom waiting for you.

I'm back to Wisconsin happily.

No, no, it's a really good time.

I'm here to see my mom and who's a fan of the show.

We are hanging out with her and her partner and we are going to be going to see some baseball tonight.

So it's going to be a really fun time.

We're having a fun.

We watched some golf.

Jealous.

But I'm looking forward.

Yeah, the baseball.

But I'm looking forward to the time here this weekend.

It's good to get out of town.

And by the time I get back, I'm assuming in Kenosha 95% of the snow will be melted away.

That is, yeah, that's great to hear.

Glad you got there safely.

And thank you for the invitation.

I assume your mom has bunk beds.

We could figure

out.

Oh, no.

Just me and you in a fall.

Me and you in a fall.

You want to come too?

Totally.

We could all sleep in the same bed like

this.

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

So who are the Brewers

playing tonight?

The Brewers are playing the Houston Texans.

Texan Houston's?

I mean, they're playing the Texans.

Astros.

Really?

It's the Astros.

Houston Texans.

No, those are the Houston Astros.

This is the Texan, oh my gosh, I know

baseball.

I thought the...

I thought the Houston Texans were a football team.

I know they are, but maybe they're a baseball team too.

I thought that too.

Let's see.

Yeah.

I know things.

I promise you.

I know things.

I believe you.

Look at your jet lag.

You've had a rough.

You have a long travel day.

We get it.

Honestly, I'd love to say that was the case, but it was one of the smoothest flights I've ever taken from security to the flight itself.

And it got in like 45 minutes early.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's it.

I swear to God.

Who knows?

You have a... Oh yeah, it's the Texas Rangers.

Oh, the Rangers, of course.

God, I don't even like seriously, I can't think straight today.

So my apologies to everyone who had to listen to me fumble through that for the past two minutes.

But yeah, so they're taking on the Texas Rangers tonight.

And it's it's it's not prospects.

It's the players.

So we're going to see.

Oh,

nice.

All players we're going to see in a few weeks playing here in Arizona.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

Very hot, but a lot of fun.

Yeah.

No, that sounds great.

Get a nice cold beer or, you know, one of your other libations that we'll

talk

about soon.

Did you fly from the Southwest?

I did.

Okay, so I sent that to you last night.

I know you saw it on Facebook, the onion headlines.

Yes.

Gives passengers chores

to do.

Oh my gosh.

I love

that.

I mean, Southwest used to be the airline that like, you know, first two bags are free and it was, you know, you were in the A, B or C section and it was.

Now it's all different.

Like the bags aren't free.

You pick your own seat, which was, which was weird.

Like they're like, you got to check in.

I'm like, why do I have to check in if I have a seat?

Like I bought a seat.

It's there.

No one can take it.

So it doesn't matter from first or last on the flight.

Just like there is, I don't know.

Like I'm not, I'm not old enough to remember when flying was a first class luxury, no matter.

where you sat in the plane like you know full meals and people were in suits and women wore white gloves but now it's just it's pack you into a sardine can with wings and just let's get there and that's kind of how it is nowadays.

It's like a greyhound with with wings I mean seriously I remember in the late 70s I went on a business trip with my dad to Washington DC and the whole plane was just smoke.

Everybody's smokey.

So

there are

some good things about flying today, but yeah, I agree.

They're just buses right now, you know.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Expensive

buses.

Exactly.

Yeah, we got a great show tonight, folks.

We have two outstanding guests.

We have the Wisconsin native regional tribal organizer, Maria Haskins will be here at 535.

Very much looking forward to talking to Maria.

And then in the second hour, from Festival Theater in St.

Croix Falls, Wisconsin, beautiful St.

Croix.

St.

Croix Falls, Jesse March will be here to talk about their upcoming season at their beautiful theater, and then he is going to stick around and make the popcorn pick of the week in the second part.

Nice.

Six o'clock hour.

Yeah, we always bring it, Greg.

And so we've got that, and we've got an outstanding question tonight that I don't think we should waste any more time getting to.

Mr. Lee.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

It is a very serendipitous Thursday here, folks.

I don't know how this happened, but today, on the day where we make the popcorn pick of the week, it also happens to be a national popcorn day.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, if there ever was a snack that deserved its own day, I'll go with popcorn.

But tonight's question is, what movie goes best with popcorn?

We did a little switcheroo there.

What movie goes best with popcorn?

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The platform?

We

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Exactly.

Yes.

In this house, we still call it Twitter, and we will always call it Twitter.

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Nice.

Yeah, so we'll get to all that.

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All right.

We've got some stuff to discuss.

Greg got baseball on the brain, but let's get through it.

Let's get some new stories here, Dom.

The first big story.

This first story, Pete, kind of takes three stories and puts them into one.

because it all has to do with Iran.

It all has to do with prices.

It all has to do with people just saying dumb things.

Do you want to go first or I will go first?

I don't know where to start.

I mean, I

can start with the

Pentagon is requesting two billion more dollars like four

hundred billion two hundred billion.

Correct.

Yes.

And that's like four times what they said they were gonna need so I don't know what's going on and I would be well We'd be really watching that money because that's a lot of money and I don't trust everybody in charge

Well, I mean here's a couple things here Pete.

First of all, I was told the war was pretty much over So why do we need 200 billion dollars?

I thought the war was pretty much done Great point

Yeah.

And not to mention the fact that I thought that this was the president who didn't get into foreign wars.

And I thought that we were broke and we needed more money.

And that's what like, here's the thing for me is, is when I hear $200 billion for a war in Iran that we do not need.

If you have any questions, ask Joe Kent, MAGA superstar who left the administration because he said we didn't need to be in Iran.

Why did we have Doge?

Doge was supposed to get rid of all of this wasteful spending.

And now we just have $200 billion laying around that we get to spend on a war in Iran that no one understands why we're there.

I mean,

I was still fuzzy on the whole doge thing anyway.

So I'm going to defer to you on that one.

But yeah,

you're

right.

Oil is at 119 a barrel.

I expected to go up even higher.

Here's what I love.

We've got Michelle Tafoya.

Greg, this plays into this whole thing too.

Candidate vying for the Republican nomination for Senate in Minnesota.

She says we need to skip a Starbucks and do our part to help support the troops

and

support the war so that we can afford higher gas prices.

So I don't really drink Starbucks anyway.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Maybe not take my allowance, which I still get from my parents.

But and she's asking us to keep a stiff upper lip.

Maybe take one less trip to Starbucks so the gas goes a little further until this thing is over and these gas prices come back down again.

Let's just try that.

Let's just try to be patriotic about this.

That really irritated

me.

You know, when you try to and when you try to bring up.

the language of the old days of war where we said buy war bonds or do what you can to help and we're fighting, you know, Adolf Hitler.

I understand that to a point.

Now when you tell me, first of all, I was Starbucks, I would tell her, get our name out of your mouth.

Yes.

Because when you use that means like, like say just buy one less coffee or one less latte, but when you invoke a corporation into this and say, you know, shop less there.

to support the war and stiff upper lip.

I'm sorry, but the one coffee drink that I buy a week or two I buy a week is hardly mitigating the $50 a week I'm spending in gas right now for $3.69 a gallon gas.

So again, it is just, she has no answer whatsoever.

And I'm speechless towards that statement, honestly.

I just think it's pure stupidity.

You're right, and I wasn't even thinking that I was just appalled that she asked us to

do

that But you're right that doesn't even make a dent in what gas prices

even if

you spend seven dollars on your drink at Starbucks That's not even a dent.

No, we

have one

other quick thing Pete Hexeth used the name Jesus Christ made it kind of religious While talking about the war we can cover that I guess when we come back from a break and we've got two other things We need to get to one

is a

very sad thing

And it's sports related.

I'm sure you all know what it is, but we're going to talk about it in any way.

Greg Bach is coming to us.

And the other story is

pathetic.

But that's my favorite one.

Greg Bach is in Arizona.

That is not keeping him from night light tonight, folks.

I'm Pete Schwabba.

He's Greg Bach.

Dom Lee working the board.

We're with you on a Thursday.

We're coming right back.

It's Night Light on the Civic Media.

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Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

My name is Greg Bach and across the state from me is Mr. Pete Schwabba in Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Land USA.

Get

closer.

Yep, other other ways known as Marinette.

And then in Madison we have Mr. Domley on the board.

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Remember, this hour's keyword for the break in the spring multi-state text doing contest is fresh.

R. E. S. H. And after the news, we'll be talking to Maria Haskins, who is a Wisconsin native votes, Wisconsin native vote regional tribal organizer for Wisconsin conservation voters here talking about a meeting she went to and how that is possibly going to impact the Wisconsin State Supreme Court election next month.

So stick around for that.

We have Mark from prayer to sec on the line right now.

Mark.

Good afternoon.

Good evening.

How are you today?

Hey,

Mark.

As of right now, I'm going through the prep for my colonoscopy tomorrow, but it's just a little testy anyway.

We're supposed to sacrifice so Trump can have his war and a war that was completely unnecessary and completely unprepared for me because it sounds like the troops weren't even aware that this was going to happen because it sounds like a lot of the troops who got hit didn't know they're supposed to be sheltered in a hardened facility.

how many of those people got injured are going to have permanent injuries, how many more people are going to die, and that we're expecting to tighten our belts and stiff upper lip, and just to pay.

We're going to be once paying for this because guys are not going to sacrifice.

In fact, Trump is probably going to profit over this.

The only thing that would bring me any kind of pleasure at all is if that plane that the Qataris gave him is still over there and got smashed in one of the Iranian attacks.

Mark, you certainly are in a mood right now.

My

goodness.

I can understand that.

I've been through the prep as well.

So I understand how you can get sometimes about it.

But thank you so much, Mark, for calling in.

We appreciate that.

Yeah, it's just, I mean, not like, you know, we're talking about the loss of life we're talking about.

We're talking about injury.

We're talking about permanent change in the region and also the fact that it's $200 billion to start.

Yeah to start and you talk about the loss of life to a thousand The death toll in Lebanon now was over a thousand three weeks old So it's crazy

Pete Hexeth is invoking Jesus Christ in the conversation now, too.

Yes He said he gave an update while addressing the joint US Israeli military operation He said may Almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight

Hex, that said to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended knee with your family in your schools in your churches in the name of Jesus Christ.

Here's why this makes me mad.

Of course, we

all

support the troops.

Here's the best way to support the troops.

Don't fight a stupid war and send them there.

That is

how you

support the troops.

Yep.

Yep, and if you want any indication on Pete Hegceth's devotion to Christ, look up the church he belongs to and who is in charge of it, and there are beliefs on women's right to vote and just exist.

But that's for another conversation.

Another time, we have two other things we need to get to.

The second big

story.

Pete, sorry buddy.

Dude.

Sorry buddy.

Badgers are such heartbreakers.

They lost today, I think by one point.

I don't even remember the final score to a high point.

Like what a 12th seed.

I've never even heard of before.

Chris Casper was here helping me get set up here.

And we kept going back and forth into the other room.

And I'm like, the Badgers were up by like eight with three minutes left

or

something like that.

And they still found a way to lose that game in very similar fashion than they did last year.

Really awkward bad shots going to the hole.

And I just

It's just that the tournament is like over for me now.

It's not even fun like I got a couple teams I can root for I'm still kind of an Illinois fan But the Badgers being out of the tournament is just it's taken my soul out of the out of March Madness

I'm sorry.

I'm seriously sorry to hear that, buddy.

I know that Dennis here is very upset about it, too.

And, you know, like I said yesterday, I don't follow these sports a lot, but when the teams that the people I care about lose, that bums me out because I don't want to see you guys bummed.

I want to see you have a good time.

Listen, I'll find there's always a Cinderella team every year.

That's what's so great about this event and I'll find

a

high

point

state

High point is the silver Cinderella.

Who's your team Dom?

It's you have I I do I'm still you have I had hard.

Yep.

Yep, and I do like the 16 seeds and the 15 seeds I'd like to see them go far.

I don't know why I used to like Loyola too.

So those are my teams.

Oh, love love I will

still join me there's still joy

to be had it's still joy to be had

I'll buck up, but do one and that hurts and they almost lost you a 16 seed and they beat us in 2015 and it still hurts to this day.

So anyway, I'm done whining.

I want to talk about something though that involves Greg and a straw and a bar.

So let's get to number three.

The third big

story.

Folks, I learned a lesson today.

The lesson is called a pro tip called a mental note, whatever you want to.

call it but always always always when you go to an airport bar ask how much the drinks are before you order them because today I paid with tip $29 for a Bloody Mary not not a gallon of Bloody Mary not 15 Bloody Mary's one Bloody Mary in one regular slice size glass with

Fine accoutrement it had two olives and a celery stick.

It was built to it was built for speed It had a little bit of vodka in there more than usual, but still when when she said $26 I said, I'm sorry.

What how much I thought like I had hurting correctly She said 26 and in my head.

I'm like, all right You didn't ask and this is Chicago and this is an airport So I paid $29 for a drink which I don't know if I've ever done in my entire life

I can't,

I didn't know that was an O'Hare.

It doesn't matter where

it is.

No, no, no.

This is Midway.

This is Midway.

Oh, Midway.

This was a Midway.

Those are Southside prices and it's still incredible.

Here's what I, I've never in my life, I've never had a ton of money, but I've never been like, I better ask how much this drink is first.

We are

there

now.

Cause

I wouldn't pay that.

I

would say, give me a seltzer water.

I'm not paying 29

bucks.

That's probably

$12.

But yeah, true.

Where's the water fountain?

How much is that?

$4.

So yeah, it looked like a good Bloody Mary, though.

I hope it was worth it.

It

looked delicious.

I made it worth it.

I drank it.

So there it is.

But lesson learned and travel time fun, right?

When we come back, we're going to be talking to Maria Haskins.

She is a Wisconsin native vote regional tribe organizer for Wisconsin conservation voters talking about a community meeting and a nominee and talking about the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race coming up next month.

Yeah, next month.

So don't go anywhere.

You're listening to Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on Nightlight on the Civic Media Network.

Stay tuned.

Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.

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You have until the end of this hour with another chance at 7 p.m.

Good luck all of you out there in the world who are allowed to play unlike Pete and Dom and myself, which is not bona contention at all.

We don't even get a

taste.

No, no, no, I don't see the

winds.

It seems like we should get a little kickback.

I don't even see the mattress set itself.

That just feels unfair as well.

But whatever, man, I guess light over it.

Well, I'm already over it.

I'm already fine.

I moved on.

I've processed.

I'm good to go.

And now it's time to talk to our first guest of the evening.

She is a regional tribal organizer for Wisconsin Native Vote.

Maria Haskins is our guest this evening.

Good evening, Maria.

How are you today?

Bonjour.

I'm good.

I'm really happy that the snow is starting to melt.

We got stacked with Snowmageddon Monday, Tuesday.

I don't think I got out of my driveway until actually Tuesday evening.

We got plowed and then I was still stuck on a pile of snow when I tried to leave.

So

where are you located, Maria?

So I live on the Stockbridge Muncie Reservation, which is about 30 minutes north of Shuttle.

Gotcha.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm

not complaining anymore about three inches of snow.

I thought

you were

in Milwaukee.

I was like, Oh, wow.

She needs to toughen up a little bit.

Yeah.

No, you're up here.

We got hit hard, Marie.

I'm in Marinette and it was.

Oh yeah.

And that will not get people to the polls.

That kind of weather.

So I'm glad it's melting.

Yeah.

Same.

Um.

We I mean, I'm in Arizona right now where it's 102 degrees and I told myself that when I get home It's gonna be melted because it can no shit supposed to be like 60 when I get home like perfect wonderful Exactly what I need in this world.

Let's talk about snowbird, too Yeah,

I'm not a snowboard.

My mom is

I'm not fancy enough.

Let's just make that very clear.

I do not make the radio dollars to make me Arizona.

But let's talk about you.

Let's talk about what's going on here.

First of all, tell us about Wisconsin Native vote and what you do in your job as a regional tribal organizer.

Yeah, so Wisconsin Native vote is a 501c3 program which is housed under Wisconsin Hazardation Voices.

We work primarily to provide voter education and registration opportunities to all the tribes in Wisconsin.

So typically, you know, during election seasons get.

pretty crazy you know we're working really hard to get people registered as many people as we can we typically are finding out you know how many people are there a voting age that need to register and it's really funny because my supervisor she was like yeah we found out that there was I don't know something like the thousand maybe like a thousand people that she was like well Maria so you should have a lot of people to register

Yeah, so I was like, yeah, Anjali, we'll do that.

So we're really busy providing voter education registration efforts like I shared.

And then we're also making sure that

people's voting rights are being honored and you know we're watching for you know circumstances when they may be impacted.

One of the hotter things that you might see talked about quite a bit is the use of things like a tribal ID as a form of identification of the polls or even to register to vote.

Unfortunately there are you know circumstances where people are not honoring the use of a tribal ID.

I don't know if it's you know lack of

Maybe people just don't know and they're not familiar with it or maybe there's you know the unfortunate circumstance where there's systemic racism at the polls and so You know we we work to combat that combat that and then also voter disenfranchisement because we know that you know historically Native people because we're not

because we're historically disenfranchised, you know, we don't have those big opportunities for that education.

So we're, you know, we're nonpartisan, so we're not endorsing any specific candidate.

Anything we do is issue-based.

And so really when we're speaking to people, we're saying, yeah, this election is happening, and we're encouraging you to do the research on all of the candidates and make an informed decision of what aligns best with you when you go to the poll to cast your ballot.

And so it's been very rewarding.

What we know sometimes is that we can't always bring people to the table when we're talking about things like civic engagement.

I mean, to some people, civic engagement is fun to talk about, right?

Like I could sit and talk to people all day about civic engagement.

But you also have to make it look attractive.

So we've been really intentional on, you know, bringing in even cultural pieces and tying that in.

So an example of that is, you know, recently, I believe it was in October, we did a moccasin making class with Menominee Cultural Museum.

And moccasins, you know, those are part of our history.

Our ancestors used them.

you know, so we call it soul to soul, you know, learn how to make Maccassans and talk about the history of voting and who Wisconsin Native vote is and what you can do for volunteer opportunities, you know, what you can do to cast your ballot to help make a positive impact in your community and.

And it was really great.

People really bought into it.

And then we were able to even secure volunteers.

And so when you're able to bring a piece of that culture in, that's also helping us revitalize our ways because there's been so much loss of culture, so much loss of language.

And so you're bringing something that seems pretty contemporary and then you're mixing our history in with it.

And that's really valuable.

Those are things, those are teachings that they're learning at the museum with us.

And then they can pass those teachings of Marcus

and making down to their children.

And then if you think about it, a lot of our story, like we have oral history, right?

So we're telling stories and then you have these young women or young men or these aunties or these grandmas or these grandpas or these uncles coming in to learn about the making of moccasins.

And that's gonna be part of the story of that.

We went, I went to Menominee Culture Museum and I learned from so-and-so how to make these moccasins and then we talked about what it meant for our people to go to the polls and cast our ballot.

That's important, you know.

So yeah, so we do a lot of that.

We do some different things with like the Native American Rights Fund, which is really important work because they're also keeping an eye on Indian country, you know, around the area, not only Wisconsin, but places like Minnesota and Michigan and

a lot of other places to make sure that we have voting rights and that they're not being violated in any way.

And so all of that is really, really valuable work.

And what we know also is that when we can educate our

tribal

communities and we know that we can organize power and we can make big, big, big numbers push to the polls when we do that.

So.

Excellent.

Yeah, you just mentioned the Native American Rights Fund and I know you have been partnering with them to have these community dinners and try to get people excited and encouraged What exactly do you say at these like like is there a lot of enthusiasm to go to the polls or do you leave kind of not knowing or do you have a sense of it because I know spring voter turnout is not typically that high and this is a great opportunity probably if you can get people to the polls to really affect an election

Yeah, so great question.

Typically, we know that our spring election numbers are pretty small.

Last year, though, we made some pretty gigantic strides and numbers to the polls.

We also know that last year's spring election made big, big news headlines.

And so bringing people together, here's the thing, as Native Americans, we love feeding each other and we love sitting at the table, being able to share a meal and, you know, especially when we can have people.

So we had an Indigenous chef cater last year and this year for the dinner, for my dinner in my region of Menominee.

And so I understand the importance of investing back into community and then bringing our relatives to the table.

And when we bring that good organic food that's good medicine,

for us and so bringing you know we brought Alice and that's what from the Native American Rights Fund to come and speak to everybody and so really what I like to say is that man if the food is good people are going to come they're going to come they're going to eat with us they're going to listen you know let's make it

worth, you know, people's while.

And this time it actually kind of paid off because I think everybody had, you know, they were sick of sitting in the house.

Like everybody was victimized by snowstorm Elsa.

So people were very willing to come there.

And really what Allison talks about is how the Supreme Court race can impact tribal sovereignty and what that looks like in a community when we are electing these justices who are serving a 10-year term.

and sharing these types of cases have been in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and they're important for you to be at the polls casting your ballot because

They're deciding on things like the Indian Child Welfare Act.

That's a really big issue in Indian country.

That was put into place to make sure that our children were remaining within their clan systems or within their homes to make sure that we don't have a loss of culture.

So that's a really big thing.

I mean, we have a lot of stuff that's going on with that.

So talking about Indian Child Welfare Act, talking about different environmental issues,

And those are all really big things in Indian country because we know that in our everyday walk of life, we're working with water protecting.

We're wanting to make sure that our land and our air and everything's taken care of.

And so when she's bringing these forward and saying, hey, these are the court cases that are going here.

And then these are the people that are making these decisions as to whether they rule in our favor.

These are the people that you're electing.

People, they get really engaged in that conversation.

They become very interested in it.

There was a lot of dialogue last night.

Last night we just had my dinner.

And so people were really into it.

And I'm hoping that the more we have these dinners, the more that we can get people to the polls.

So it's been, it was really great, incredible turnout.

So we only have about about a minute and a half left.

So I'm going to ask this question now and we can take it on the other side of the break.

Basically, it's kind of a two-parter is what I wanted to hear more about what people were saying at the dinner itself.

But also, you know, in the time in the time we have the break, just I want to also know, what are you hearing from the young people?

from the Tribal communities about, specifically about voting, whether it's the MEGA Act, the SAVE Act, just registering to vote to begin with, the things that you were talking about.

I want to know what the youth are saying, because I think that's so very important.

In any community, the youth getting them involved, but from what it sounds like to me, there's more work to be done in the Tribal communities because of

everything happening.

And when I say everything, I mean, I say that with a big capitalization.

So we're going to talk more about that on the other side of the bridge.

Maria Haskins is our guest right now.

She is a regional tribal organizer for Wisconsin native vote talking about getting people out to the polls, getting them educated, making sure they understand what their rights are as

Tribal folks, American citizens, the whole Kitten Kaboodle.

We talking more about that on the other side of the break.

Don't go anywhere.

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Tonight, so don't go anywhere stick around We're having fun.

It's gonna be a great time We are talking to Maria Haskins who is a regional tribal organizer for Wisconsin native vote talking about the work She is doing in the tribal communities with regard to education as far as your rights to vote Registering to vote and you said that you had a dinner last night where you had a great conversation with folks from the community and I asked before we went to the break one

what were you hearing from the people there as far as just like your concerns or excitement, but also what do you hear from the young folks who are in the community as well?

Sure, so last night, you know, sometimes you have these dinners and sometimes people are kind of like, well, who do I vote for?

like we know like who the candidates are but like we can't tell you who to pick when you're casting your ballot so there was a lot of those questions and kind of having to break down the understanding of like the 501c3 but then speaking to people on saying

figure out what issues you feel passionate about, and whatever you're passionate about, you find that candidate, and if they are also passionate about those issues, then that's probably who you should choose.

And so then people start to understand.

As far as youth engagement, we have, so one of our objectives this year is to really drive youth engagement.

And so what I'm seeing in community is I'm seeing a lot of youth being involved in different things, just youth movements basically.

And some of those movements are starting really small, but things that they believe their community deserves.

And so hot topics and communities,

you know are really about the current struggles that that we're dealing with and a lot of that the rut is you know we're dealing with mental health and substance abuse, we're dealing with homelessness, you know we're dealing of just lack of resources, sometimes we have food insecurities that are going on and our youth notice that and I think that sometimes we forget that they're seeing that and we're forgetting that they're really noticing that because I think a lot of people

I think that a lot of people think that youth aren't really paying attention because they're always in their phones.

But really, that's where their news is coming from.

So all of their information, they're getting that from TikTok, Instagram.

They don't really go on Facebook anymore.

That's more of like...

the parent stuff I guess but there's definitely different social media platforms that youth are on that's where they're getting their news and so we're looking for ways to reach youth in that in those platforms and so also going into different youth groups so like

another example of the work that we've been doing, I was able to partner with the 4-H group in Menominee.

And so it's obviously youth-based, a little bit younger kids, but we were able to go in there and talk about the importance of civic engagement and what that looks like in selecting leadership and your tribal community.

But then also like smaller things like, you know, talking to them about

What is the role of the school board?

The role of the school board is to bring people to the board to help make sure that your school is operating in a way that's desirable for the parents and the children that are here in the school district.

They're making sure that they're bringing teachers to your school who are going to teach you

in a good way.

We're making sure that there there's accountability and so the importance it's really important to figure out who your school board members are because they're also looking at the budget of your school and how your school is spending money on programs that you all enjoy.

Whether that's music, art, sports, you know all of these different things.

And so the kids were able to see, you know, kind of what that leadership looks like for their environment.

And then we were able to bring a cultural twist in there and teach kids about dish bake making.

And so dish bake making is not only very beneficial because it's a teaching that we have within our communities to

you know, avoid wasteful products and

it's

kind of like a teaching to the youth about there.

It's like their first bundle that they're taking care of.

It's teaching them a little bit of responsibility

over

something.

Taking care of those dishes, washing them, bringing them with you to different feasts, you know.

Then, you know, on a more contemporary side, we talk a lot about sustainability.

And so this is a really sustainable practice because then we're not using paper plates and paper cups and plastic ware and things like that.

And so the kids had, you know, different questions about what that looks like, you know, for the school board, like, you know, I don't know, I think one was like, you know, do they say like if a teacher gets to like maintain a job, like it got kind of like.

a little sticky like where I was like well that's super short like what they're gonna do about those teachers.

But nonetheless, that's planting the seed in them at a younger age to understand, you know, this is what voting looks like.

And when you're voting for things like this, you're making a choice on how you think it's not only going to benefit you, but it's going to benefit the community around you.

So those are the types of things that we're doing.

Those are the types of the things that kids are talking about, you know, things like that.

Wow, this is great.

We are unfortunately are out of time unless you can answer a question in four seconds Very fun Maria

and very self-aware.

I

love that Best of luck to the outcome of the election and I hope it goes well for you and all the people you're encouraging to the vote Thank you for the work you do and keep up the great work and please come and visit us again sometime here at nightlight

Yeah, anytime.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate you all

You're welcome.

That's Maria Haskins Regional Tribal Organizer, or it was Consonative Vote.

That was fun.

Greg, we're going to come back after the news.

Read some texts.

We've got Jesse March here.

He's going to make the popcorn pick of the week and tell us what's coming up at the festival theater.

We'll do all of that after the news.

Don't go anywhere, folks.

This is Nightlight with Beach Wabba and Greg Locke on the Civic Media Network.

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